Helm and Todd family photographs and papers, 1850-1951

Author

Finding aid prepared by Oliver R. Keels

Title

Helm and Todd family photographs and papers

Date

1850-1951

Repository

University of Kentucky Special Collections

Arrangement

This collection is arranged into two series, papers and photographs. The photographs have been arranged further into folders. The arrangement scheme has been imposed during processing due to a lack of original order. The content of the first series has been arranged chronologically by author. Contents of the second series are arranged by subject and certain subseries by original order.

Conditions Governing Access note

This collection is only available electronically.

Preferred Citation Note

2011av006: [identification of item], Helm and Todd family photographs and papers, 1850-1951, University of Kentucky Special collections.

Biography/History

Benjamin Hardin Helm was born in Bardstown, Kentucky, on June 1831, the son of John L. Helm, a prominent lawyer and politician in Kentucky. He was enrolled in the Kentucky Military Institute and was a graduate of West Point. Following his resignation of his commission from the military, Helm studied law at the University of Louisville and Harvard law schools, graduating in 1953. Helm then joined his father in practicing law in Elizabethtown Kentucky. In 1955, Benjamin Hardin Helm was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives to represent Hardin County for one term. The following year he married Emilie Todd, half sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. In 1860, he was appointed the Inspector General for the Kentucky State Guard.

In 1861, Benjamin Hardin Helm refused the offer to become the Union Army’s paymaster in order to join the Confederate Army. Upon his return to Kentucky, he organized the 1st Kentucky Cavalry for the Confederate States of America. Benjamin Hardin Helm went on to serve as a colonel during the Battle of Shiloh with both the 1st Kentucky Cavalry brigade and the 3rd Kentucky brigade. He was promoted to brigadier general and commanded the 1st Kentucky Orphan Brigade at Shiloh, Baton Rouge, Vicksburg and the Battle of Chickamauga, where he was fatally wounded in the fall of 1863.

Emilie Helm was born Emilie Todd on 11 November 1836 to Robert Smith Todd and Elizabeth Humphreys Todd. She married Benjamin Hardin Helm in 1856 and resided in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. She had three children with Helm: Katherine (1857), Elodie (1859), and Benjamin (1862). With the onset ofthe Civil War, Emilie Helm followed her husband to Baton Rouge in 5 August 1862 and to Chattanooga that same year. Following Benjamin Hardin Helm’s death at Chickamauga, Emilie Helm briefly resided with her sister Mary Todd Lincoln at the White House before returning to Kentucky. In 1882, Emilie Helm was appointed postmistress by President Chester A. Arthur, a post she held for the next 12 years. In 1897, the United Daughters of the Confederacy elected Emilie Todd Helm as president of the Ben Hardin Helm chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, named in honor of her late husband. Emilie Todd Helm remained in Kentucky until her death on 20 February 1930.

Katherine Helm pursued a career as an artist following the end of the Civil War. She studied at the Art Students League in New York. On 18 February 1908, her portrait of Jefferson Davis was displayed at Memorial Hall in New Orleans. On 18 February 1925, her portrait of her aunt, Mary Todd Lincoln, was presented to President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. Katherine Helm died 18 June 1937.

Elodie Helm attended the Cincinnati Academy of Music. Upon graduation, she married Waller Lewis of Georgetown Kentucky. Upon her husband’s death, Elodie moved to Helm Place with her mother, brother, and sister. She died on 15 June 1953 in Geneva, New York, on her way to Vermont.

Benjamin Hardin Helm, Jr., served as the commissioner of the New Orleans Bureau of Freight and Transportation following the Civil War. He also served as a freight contracting agent for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and the Chicago Great Western Railroad. Following his retirement in 1917, Benjamin Hardin Helm, Jr., moved back to Kentucky to take over the management of Helm Place. He died there on 18 May 1946.

Scope and Content

Collection contains 330 images in varied formats of Helm and Todd family members, friends, associates, and family residences. The bulk of the images were in a series of photographic albums collected and arranged by family members. Images include photographs of Confederate General Benjamin Hardin Helm (1831-1863), his wife, Emilie Todd Helm (1836-1930); and their children Katherine Helm (1857-1937), Elodie Helm Lewis (1859-1953), and Benjamin Hardin Helm Jr. (1862-1946). The collection also includes a number of images of relatives of Emilie Todd Helm, including her father, Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849); her brothers, Alexander Todd (1839-1862) and Samuel Briggs Todd (1830-1904); her cousin, Lyman Beecher Todd (1832-1902); and her nephew, Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926). The material within this collection relates to the Confederate States of America, officers in the Confederate army, the Civil War history of Kentucky, the Kentucky Confederate Brigade and Cavalry Regiment, the Kentucky estates of Helm Place and Longwood, as well as photographs and portraits from the Civil War. Along with Alexander Todd's 1861 diary and Katherine Helm's sketchbook, the collection includes a number of daguerreotypes, card photographs, black and white photographs, cased photographs, and portrait photographs.

Subjects

Helm family

Todd family, Fayette Co., Ky.

black-and-white photographs

cabinet photographs

card photographs

cartes-de-visite (card photographs)

cased photographs

Daguerreotype.

Diaries--19th Century.

Photograph albums.

sketchbooks

Helm Place

Kentucky--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Portraits.

Helm, Benjamin Hardin, 1831-1863

Helm, Benjamin Hardin, 1862-1943

Helm, Elodie, 1859-1953

Helm, Emilie Todd, 1836-1930

Helm, Katherine, 1857-1937

Lincoln, Robert Todd, 1843-1926

Murphy, Joe H., 1917-2011

Todd, Alexander, 1839-1862

Todd, Lyman Beecher, 1832-

Todd, Robert S., 1792-1849

Todd, Samuel Briggs, 1830-1904

Confederate States of America--Army--Kentucky Brigade, 1st

Confederate States of America. Army--Officers--Portraits

Confederate States of America. Army. Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, 1st.

Families--Kentucky--Lexington.

Longwood (Ky.)

Portrait photographs

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Confederate States of America.

United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Photographs

User Restrictions

Contact institution for details.

Related Material

2010ms018, Todd family Papers, 1784-1849, University of Kentucky Special Collections 55w32, Robert Todd papers, 1797-1852, University of Kentucky Special Collections

Katherine Helm sketchbook, undated

Benjamin Hardin Helm, Jr. note concerning a watch and chain worn by President Abraham Lincoln bequeathed to Helm by Robert Todd Lincoln, 1943 May 31

Ribbon from Eighth Reunion of the First Kentucky Orphan's Brigade in Louisville, Kentucky and a handwritten list of 1st Kentucky Calvary, Confederate States of America members in Meade County, Kentucky by J. D. Shacklett, 1889 September 19

Belle Bennett, 1878

Loose images

Unidentified man

Reproduction of print,
Titea Verelli

Woman and foal

Cartes de visite album 3

Scope and Content Note:

Leather-bound 1860s era cartes de visite album, 30 pages. Only 21 of the 30 pages contained images. Images missing from pages 2, 4-5, 9, 11, 18-19, 24, 26. No indication on the album pages as to the subject of those missing images.